Coral bleaching is a complex physiological response to environmental stressors, primarily temperature fluctuations, that induces oxidative damage, disrupting the intracellular symbiotic relationship between corals and their dinoflagellate algae and/or reducing the algae’s photosynthetic pigments. Coral recovery from bleaching often depends on the re-establishment of this symbiosis, with associated fauna potentially influencing coral resilience by either mitigating or exacerbating bleaching effects. Yet this subject remains underexplored, particularly regarding invertebrates. Here, we investigated the physiological response of the ten-ray star coral Madracis decactis to thermal stress and the impact of the coral-associated crab Mithraculus forceps on its recovery from bleaching. In a laboratory experiment, we subjected coral fragments to a 21-day thermal stress, followed by a 4-week recovery period, and assessed key parameters of the coral–algae symbiosis and the oxidative-stress response. Our results showed that heat stress caused severe impacts on coral physiology, with persistent bleaching effects on the coral–algae symbiosis and no signs of recovery. Additionally, we found that the presence of Mi. forceps had a negligible effect on Ma. decactis fragments, with no influence on the coral’s overall condition or recovery from thermal bleaching under the conditions tested. However, more complex ecological scenarios may reveal context-dependent crab roles that could influence coral recovery, highlighting the need for studies that incorporate broader biotic and abiotic interactions.

This article revisits the Finnish contribution to the First International Polar Year (IPY) (1882–1883) by examining a largely overlooked primary source: “On the Finnish Research Expedition to Sodankylä and Kultala in 1882–1884, with Sketches from Lapland” (Helsinki, 1885). Contrary to claims in recent scholarship that no detailed accounts of daily life at the Finnish polar station have survived, this volume offers rich descriptions of the expedition’s routines, challenges, and social interactions. Drawing on these narratives, the article reconstructs the everyday realities of scientific work in Sodankylä, including the arduous journey north, the setting up of observation facilities, the strict schedule of meteorological and magnetic observations, and the experimental studies on auroral phenomena led by Professor Selim Lemström. The analysis highlights why these accounts were forgotten – due to linguistic barriers and limited popular dissemination – and argues for their significance in understanding both the material culture of polar science and Finland’s role in the First IPY. By bringing this evidence into the historiography of Arctic research, the article challenges prevailing assumptions and calls for renewed attention to local perspectives in global scientific enterprises.

This article examines recruitment practices in Swedish polar expeditions during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, focusing on A.G. Nathorst’s Arctic voyages 1898 and 1899, the Swedish-Russian Arc-of-Meridian surveys 1898–1901, and the 1903 Antarctic rescue expedition. Drawing on preserved correspondence, this article explores who conducted recruitment, how it was done, and what competencies were sought. The expedition leader recruited other scientists on his own, relying on recommendations from fellow academics. Hiring of sailors involved several persons; the leader, the ship’s captain, other seamen and semi-professional commissioners. The default mode was to re-hire old shipmates. When that was not possible, new recruits were evaluated through acquaintances or based on their reputation. Experience of travel in icy waters was considered valuable. Sailors with references from scientific expeditions were especially sought after, and could use this to attain higher wages than was the norm in ordinary work at sea.

Ascidiella aspersa is a solitary ascidian native to the North-east Atlantic that has been introduced to many regions around the globe. In 2023, individuals matching the description of A. aspersa were found on an artificial dock structure in Stanley Harbour, Falkland Islands, where there were no previous records of the species. Individuals were collected for morphological and genetic analyses, and previous surveys of the site were reanalysed to estimate the abundance of the population. The morphological examination and genetic analysis confirmed the individuals were A. aspersa. Analysis of the survey data suggested the species has been present since at least 2011 and forms a reasonably dense population on the more sheltered areas of the dock structure. Further survey work and population genetic investigations are required to better understand the likely origin of the population, and the abundance and extent of the species around the Falkland Islands.

The global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) is fuelling a rapid expansion of data infrastructure, an industry that is notoriously water-intensive. This growth creates a critical, yet understudied, nexus between digital expansion and hydrological systems, particularly in ecologically vulnerable regions. This study applies a spatially explicit framework to quantify the water footprint of AI data centres in Brazil, a nation heavily reliant on drought-sensitive hydropower. Our method integrates datasets on data centre locations, regional hydrological cycles, power generation sources and watershed-level water stress indices to model both direct (cooling) and indirect (energy generation) water consumption. Our key finding is that the AI infrastructure cluster in the São Paulo metropolitan region, with an operational IT load of ~550 MW, has an estimated annual water footprint of 16.1 million cubic metres. A significant portion of this, over 46%, is indirect “virtual water” consumed through hydropower generation, establishing a direct feedback loop where data centre demand stresses water and energy systems already compromised by climate change. This article concludes that the environmental cost of AI extends beyond carbon to include water, a cost disproportionately borne by biodiverse regions. We call for a paradigm shift in tech policy and corporate sustainability to include metrics of water neutrality and watershed resilience, in alignment with global sustainability goals.

The dendrophylliid ‘sun corals’ are a group of highly dispersive scleractinians that became invasive in the Atlantic Ocean. A recent study, focusing on the corallite macro- and micromorphologies, remarkably expanded the number of Tubastraea species in the Southwestern Atlantic, including the description of four new corals to the world: Tubastraea grandidentata, T. megalostoma, T. columnata, and T. ramosa, which are validated in the present study. The increasing biodiversity of sun corals demands the application of alternative tools, such as molecular markers, to corroborate findings at the morphological level. Hence, a DNA analysis based on COI, IGR, and ITS1-5.8S-ITS2 rDNA regions is used to infer the phylogeny of the new species described from Brazil. The rDNA is the most variable region and dramatically impacts the phylogenetic reconstruction, supporting the species identity of the ‘Brazilian’ Tubastraea and indicating two major clades: branched and unbranched corals. The most robust phylogeny is obtained by concatenating the three genetic regions using Bayesian inference. Genetic polymorphisms and fixed differences are observed within and between species. Data also support the identity of Atlantia caboverdiana from the Northeastern Atlantic. Finally, the unprecedented biodiversity of sun coral species in the Tropical Atlantic raises concerns about all previous identifications and the mechanisms involved in the dispersion of Tubastraea across the world. Moreover, multiple introductions, gene flow, and larval competency period remain misunderstood, challenging the management policies hitherto adopted to control these exotic dendrophylliids.

Microhabitat associations in sessile invertebrates are largely determined by larval choices and early differential post-settlement mortality. Either process can have a broad community-wide impact when it regulates a cascade of foundation species, each facilitating multiple dependent taxa. On mixed sediments in shallow subtidal of Onega Bay (the White Sea, 65° N) cockles, barnacles and ascidians act as foundation species forming a multi-level facilitation cascade. Barnacles Balanus crenatus monopolize empty shells of the Greenland cockle Serripes groenlandicus, whereas ascidians (mainly Styela rustica) attach almost exclusively to barnacles and conspecifics. Field observations and experiments evidence that barnacles facilitate ascidians and suggest that individual patches shift from barnacle to ascidian dominance over time. Ascidian recruits are found on barnacles and almost never on Serripes shells, a pattern that may result either from substrate-specific larval settlement or from differential post-settlement mortality.

Here, we experimentally tested whether larval substrate preferences generate this pattern. In a laboratory experiment, fertilized Styela eggs were added to aerated seawater tanks containing Serripes shells with and without barnacles, and the distribution of ascidian juveniles was quantified after 10 days. Contrary to our hypothesis, settlement density on Serripes shells exceeded that on barnacles. This result rules out larval substrate selection as the primary mechanism and instead implicates substrate-specific post-settlement mortality of a secondary foundation species as the most likely driver of facilitation.

This article explores how young people in Norilsk – Russia’s largest Arctic city and a global exemplar of industrial monotown development – negotiate their futures amid extreme environmental challenges, social isolation, and economic uncertainty. Drawing on 31 in-depth interviews with vocational students of industrial specialisations, the paper examines the ways in which youth navigate a unique “here” (Norilsk) versus “on the mainland” (the rest of Russia) divide that shapes both lived experience and imagined mobility. The analysis reveals that youth typically approach life in Norilsk as a temporary, but agentic strategy: they seek financial security and work experience locally before considering uncertain migration elsewhere. This calculated “staying,” termed “permanent temporality,” is influenced by limited educational and career opportunities, strong vocational pipelines, and family narratives that valorise the accumulation of a “safety cushion” prior to moving. While Norilsk offers predictability and stability, it is rarely seen as a place for long-term residence or generational settlement. The findings challenge assumptions of Arctic youth passivity or inevitable depopulation, highlighting instead the adaptive agency young people display in a context of structural constraint. The study situates these strategies between broader transformations in Russian education, shifting value attached to vocational and university pathways, and the specific vulnerabilities of Arctic urban environments. The article concludes by discussing the implications for regional policy, urban sustainability, and broader understandings of youth transition and mobility under conditions of global peripherality and rapid socioeconomic change.

Sagittal otoliths are structures that integrate the sensory system of teleost fish, assisting in balance and hearing, which are normally composed of calcium carbonate in the form of aragonite. The dusky grouper Epinephelus marginatus has great economic importance and there are already initiatives to produce this species through aquaculture. This study aimed to check the frequency of anomalous otoliths and to characterize the crystallization of sagittal otoliths in E. marginatus from a rearing system. We examined sagittal otoliths of 184 E. marginatus, most otoliths presented normal morphology (n = 152; TL = 24.0 ± 3.59 cm; OW = 0.034 ± 0.014 g), while about 17% were deformed (n = 32; TL = 29.7 ± 1.87 cm; OW mean = 0.040 ± 0.011 g). Raman spectroscopy detected aragonite deposition in all normal and anomalous otoliths. The morphological changes in otoliths of groupers may have been caused by transport between hatchery and fattening locations, by the constant flow of aeration during hatchery rearing, or even by a possible starvation period.

Proactive sewer asset management requires accurate condition assessment, yet CCTV inspections remain costly because interpretation is manual. We evaluated 18 vision-language models (VLMs) in a zero-shot setting for automated classification of six sewer defect types using a curated dataset. Each model produced a defect label, a short explanation, and a confidence score. OpenAI proprietary models outperformed open-source ones. GPT-4.1 mini achieved the highest macro-F1 score (0.50), outperforming much larger models, especially for surface damage and cracks/breaks. Some open-source models, such as LLaMa 4 (16x17B) and Qwen2.5-VL (32B), performed above random guessing but remained behind the proprietary models. All models failed to detect production errors, the most difficult class, and performed poorly on deformations. Confidence scores were generally unreliable, with little distinction between correct and incorrect predictions. Textual-output analysis showed that models sometimes described defects accurately even when the assigned label was wrong, although major hallucinations remained. We conclude that VLMs show some promise for sewer asset management, but they are not ready for deployment. Future work should focus on adding asset metadata to prompts and fine-tuning open-source models, especially since larger, newer, and more expensive OpenAI models did not outperform smaller ones, although confirmation requires a more thorough statistical analysis.

As Arctic stakeholders navigate a new era of great power competition, this article reflects on the influence that Indigenous Peoples have had on Arctic and international politics through their roles as co-founders of the Arctic Council (AC) system and as Permanent Participants (PPs) within it. Through a constructivist lens, this article highlights the influence the PPs have had on the evolution of the Council’s interests and practices. Based on findings from multiple interviews and an extensive document analysis of the AC’s official Declarations between 1996 and 2021, the article identifies how PP advocacy for the inclusion of Indigenous worldviews, Knowledges, and rights has shaped the AC over time. The article argues that the PPs are a crucial part of the AC’s structure and co-constitute its identity, challenging state-centric understandings of the Council’s existence. It asserts that the PPs’ co-constitution of the AC is what has endowed it with its legitimacy in Arctic and international affairs. However, despite being a core element of what makes the Council what it is, the research findings highlight a variety of challenges and limitations that remain for the PPs. Additionally, the article discusses how the pause of AC work following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine exposed gaps in the recognition and full implementation of the rights and self-determination of Indigenous Peoples.

This article is an attempt to understand how diverse and seemingly incommensurable aerial perspectives on Arctic exploration could co-exist during the search for the John Franklin expedition in the 1840s and 1850s. I begin by examining the cultural context of ballooning before turning to proposals to send balloons and other aerial missions to the Arctic. Why did balloons and ‘balloonacy’, as the popular periodical Punch described this craze, come to feature so prominently in responses to the Arctic mystery, and how did women feature in these responses? I then discuss the clairvoyantes who were put into mesmeric trances and then described visiting Franklin and his men in the Arctic. Beginning at the time of greatest anxiety regarding the fate of the expedition, clairvoyante visionaries and their operators formed part of an emotional field of speculation and experimentation centred on the Arctic. I conclude by arguing that actual balloon expeditions in search of Franklin echoed many of the mesmeric and imaginary projects emanating from popular culture. This connects women’s perspectives about the Arctic with aerial exploration schemes and suggests that we look at both together for a deeper understanding of polar culture in the 1840s and 1850s.

This paper explores Japan’s maritime and Arctic policies. Japan’s interest in the polar regions emerged early due to its geographical characteristics and the impacts of climate change, expanding its scientific research activities in the Arctic and Antarctic regions. Over time, Japan has broadened its involvement in the economic, scientific, environmental, and security domains. As a non-Arctic state, Japan has expressed its intent to contribute to resolving Arctic issues and has sought to take a leading role in Arctic governance within the international community. In 2007, Japan enacted the Basic Act on Ocean Policy to promote comprehensive and strategic maritime policies. Japan announced its 4th Basic Ocean Plan in 2023, which plays a crucial role in the sustainable use and protection of marine resources, marine environmental protection, and maritime safety. This paper comprehensively analyses Japan’s Basic Ocean Plans and Arctic policy, exploring the relationship and evolution between maritime and Arctic policies and examining how these policy changes reflect Japan’s international maritime strategy. While previous studies have treated maritime and Arctic policies separately, this paper analyses the interrelationship between the two, investigating the evolution of Japan’s maritime policy up to the present and the development and characteristics of its Arctic policy.